The Husband Who Refused to Die

by Andrea Darby

  The fact I’ve kept quiet about my meetings with Ashley is troubling me greatly. What started as a small omission now feels like a big deceit, though I suspect Mark knows something, maybe overheard one of our kitchen chats. His ears are constantly pricked up – like a German Shepherd at a crime scene.

  I take a coffee to Mark. He’s back from interviewing a client, looking dapper in a linen jacket. He chucks his notebook on to his cluttered desk, knocking over the framed photo of his son Jack in a triceratops costume.

  ‘Got anything in there that’s laced with chocolate and stuffed with caramel and nuts but only has three calories,’ I say, pretending to peer into his leather case.

  ‘Sorry, no can do. I’ve got a low-fat crispy rice bar, though. A quid to you.’

  ‘Keep it,’ I say, smiling.

  That evening, I find myself working ludicrously hard during my step class, the pounds I’ve gained since buying the dress for the auction driving me, the thought of my dimpled thighs wrapped in tight teal generating extra, fear-fuelled aerobic energy. I’m certainly ‘earning the burn’.

  ‘Bloody hell, Carrie, you been on the Red Bull?’ Slim Kim’s huffing on her step next to me, desperate to keep up.

  ‘Nope.’ I try to smile. The new recruit, a chunky girl with a glamorous up-do and pretty heart-shaped face, looks over as she takes a protracted mineral water break, holding her sides with a grimace.

  Lady Lycra gives me a little nod as she sets the pace out front, eyes flashing with amazement at my effort.

  ‘Step it up and beat that fat. Hard and fast is where it’s at,’ she yells in time to the bouncy music. Even the Fit Twins – both gay, astoundingly buff and fiercely competitive, always trying to out-exercise each other – have broken into a glossy sweat.

  ‘I shouldn’t have had that big dinner,’ Slim says, holding her stomach and lagging behind the beat.

  ‘You doing the wrong kind of pumping?’ I ask. She smirks. She’d been caught out once during an unexpected silence in a ‘techno track’. Never lived it down. ‘Thank God for the … blaring music then,’ I say, straining to talk.

  ‘Damn you, Mum, for the inherited cellulite,’ I mutter through gritted teeth, ogling our leader’s thighs – so tight you could bounce toffees off them – as I thrust my torso this way and that in response to her orders. I wonder whether some of my effort’s for Ashley.

  Eleanor’s sat on her bed pulling faces into her mobile, cosmetics littering her gingham quilt, when I sashay into her room in shiny teal.

  ‘God, I’ve got so many spots,’ she fumes. ‘I hate my skin.’ She did seem to be getting more, proper custard tops, not just the usual clusters of red and black dots, but I’m not about to say it.

  ‘You can hardly see them,’ I fib. ‘So – what do you think?’

  ‘Wow. That looks well nice. Colour’s cute.’

  ‘Thanks, darling.’ I stand at the mirror, turn this way and that, wondering what my Spanx will bring to the party. Snorting some acrid air, I turn to see Pepsi whizzing around on his wheel as if in training for a rodent run.

  ‘That cage stinks again. I had to go mad with my new pomegranate and pine spray up here this morning. You need to clean it more regularly.’

  Eleanor plays deaf. I retreat.

  I’ve decided on a topic for a new article to send with the magazine job application, but can’t find the creative energy. Instead, I email Sheena, assuring her she’s not going mad mistaking the voice on the answerphone for Geoff, how I’d thought I heard Dan moving around the house several times after he’d gone, and once was convinced I’d heard him speak. I congratulate her on the promotion and tell her about my moodiness, the job searches, meeting Ashley, the upcoming auction and how Eleanor’s been playing the diva since landing her acting role, demanding bottled water for one rehearsal and yesterday announcing she couldn’t go because of her spots.

  Then there’s another ‘silent’ phone call; the third that day. I had two yesterday. The pattern’s the same: ‘Caller unknown’; I pick it up, an eerie silence the other end. A purposeful rustling follows and the faint but protracted sound of expelled breath – then the call ends. I’d assumed the first couple were junk calls, but now I know they’re not.

  Someone’s listening in silence to my pleas:

  ‘Who is this?’, ‘Why are you calling?’

  ***

  ‘Congratulations, troops. Tuck in,’ Pete says, as we gather in the boardroom to celebrate the Lorex contract, gesturing to the spread as if he’s laid on a royal banquet.

  Forget ice sculptures and diamond-encrusted napkin rings, we have Pringles and onion rings. Mrs Cullimore has made a cake and Barbara’s brought in a variety of unidentifiable fillings wrapped in filo. It’s not lavish, but none of us have worked for extravagant publishing houses who throw in bonuses like bi-annual botox or Harrods hampers and appreciate that for Pete, and given the circumstances, it’s a generous gesture.

  ‘I should have worn my tux,’ Mark whispers as we toast our success. I titter, trying not to spit out a mouthful of Asti.

  Despite the levity, there’s such genuine jubilation I feel like an impostor – like the time Ashley and I turned up to the wrong party at poly, deciding to see how long we could stay before someone realised. It was several hours.

  I was pleased about Lorex, but primarily for everyone else. Saying that, Cullimore’s was comfortable and familiar, made me feel secure, though it wasn’t what I’d choose; like a good support bra. And my wonderful colleagues had helped me through the previous two years. I feel guilty and ungrateful, compounded by the fact that, by some miracle, I’ve sent the magazine job application and, judging on the positive reactions of people who’ve viewed the house so far, may be moving away.

  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve ‘nearly’ applied for editorial posts, courage abandoning me at the last minute. I can’t believe I’ve really done it, for once eschewing excuses and distractions to write a short piece about being a single parent and tidying up a few old articles – though I don’t hold out much hope.

  Work passes in a blur for the next few days, spirits lifted by the Lorex triumph soon grounded by the pressure of a heavy workload and Pete’s admission he’s been ‘screwed down on price’ to secure the contract so we we’re not out of danger, especially if we don’t deliver. He can only draft in one extra freelancer, leaving Mark to gather almost all the editorial for a thirty-page staff magazine.

  Then Tash spies a mystery visitor leaving Pete’s office, describing him as mean-looking with dark, greasy hair; and dressed in black.

  ‘A friend of ours, perhaps,’ Mark says. His cryptic comment’s met with bewildered stares. ‘Perhaps Pete’s joined the Mafia,’ he adds. We speculate about possible plans to sell the business to some shady media man.

  I’m apprehensive when, soon after our usual Monday meeting, Pete calls me back to his office.

  ‘Carrie, you’re obviously going to head up the DVD project. They’d appreciate an initial call from you,’ he says, shoulders hunched over his large notepad.

  ‘OK.’ I’m reassured that work’s continuing as normal, but rattled by his use of the word ‘obviously’. Keen to ease Mark’s load and get some practice in, I tentatively offer to write a few articles. Pete commends my idea, allocating me several, small ‘filler’ stories, though I’d hoped for a proper feature that required research skills and several face-to-face interviews – something challenging and substantial.

  Back in the office, Mark greets me with a gruff groan, hands locked on his head as he stretches back in his chair. I try to engage him in conversation but he’s unusually grumpy.

  Later, demanding he take a break, and concerned his joke tally has dropped to a dangerously low level, I lure him into the kitchen with coffee and a contraband chocolate biscuit, offering to help him search out the final few business sponsors for his charity auction programme. The event is two days away. He needs to get it printed urgently.

  ‘Thanks, yea
h, great. Sorry I’ve been a bit of a moody git, but—’

  ‘I know – hideous workload, no time for idle chit-chat.’

  He tells me his wife’s becoming increasingly difficult and obstinate, insisting he collect Jack at a set time, then changing her mind at short notice or leaving him waiting outside the house for hours. And she’s definitely moving away.

  ‘Anyway, enough about her. So what’s new in your world?’ Mark asks.

  I mention the second nasty note, and the strange calls. I wonder if the scratch on the car’s related. He’s concerned, as Imogen had been, advises me to log everything; details, times. Take photos. I don’t want to report it to the police, but maybe if it continues I will.

  ‘And I’ve put the house on the market,’ I add.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ He freezes, mug mid-air. ‘Everyone’s at it. Where you going?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I toss the teaspoon into the sink.

  ‘Are you staying in the area?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You mentioned France before, joining Imogen. Strewth, don’t say you’re off to Oz.’

  I shrug, with a half smile.

  ‘Do you really want to move?’ Mark’s head is cocked, eyes glazed from staring at his screen.

  ‘I don’t know. Bloody hell, this isn’t one of your interviews.’

  ‘It’s a good job. It wouldn’t be much of an article.’

  I tut, flicking Mark’s cauliflower ear as I head for the door. He flashes one of his soft smiles that saturate his eyes. He’s right. I realise I’m making decisions about moving on, yet I’m not fully convinced by them.

  Back at my desk, I read an email from Sheena. I know it must be important, so soon after her last one:

  Hi Carrie. It’s hilarious Eleanor’s playing the Diva – 13-year-olds are funny, aren’t they? Daughter number 2 has announced she has a boyfriend, although they never meet, just send texts with XXX and some sort of code. I had a reporter from the local newspaper here as they’re doing a follow-up story about Geoff. She was pretty tactless, digging over the same old questions, then had the cheek to say she understood the police assumed someone was dead if they’d been missing for more than three weeks and did I agree!! Let’s just say, I was very curt. As you know, I’ve tried to be honest with the girls about Geoff’s disappearance, yet keep them optimistic, as I am, about his safe return. It’s been nearly 17 months (507 days) but I still strongly believe he’ll come back to us. Sheena xxx P.S The girls insisted I go to a colleague’s leaving party tonight – daughter number 1 is babysitting!

  It’s shocking to see it written as a number – 500 days of not knowing. 500 days of the kind of anguish that would destroy lesser mortals than shatterproof Sheena. For the first time, I imagine her face. She has fine hair, recently turning grey, with a soft fringe, gentle smile – and small, steely eyes. For the first time, I want to see her, and hug her. And, not for the first time, I want to inflict physical pain on a newspaper reporter.

  Driving home through hard rain, so tired of the route that I welcome the challenge of misty windows and heavy, wet streaks that obscure my view and exhaust the wipers, I promise myself I’ll launch straight into the sponsor search when I get back. Mark was joining me later. There’d be no distractions as Eleanor was staying late at school. Performances of Fame were imminent, her anxiety was building, moods mixed, and she was spending so much time rehearsing, I was considering sending her to school with her onesie and microwave porridge.

  As I imagine her name on a huge billboard intermittently blurred by a wet windscreen, the irony of the lyrics of the musical’s hit song strike me. I’d heard Eleanor belting it out repeatedly in her bedroom: the bit about living forever. Luckily, Dan had passed on the flying bit.

  Poor Eleanor had to sing those words on stage. Maybe I was being stupid, but I imagined her fellow thespians nudging, smirking and whispering in the wings when she did so. I dreaded the thought that she might be subjected to more taunts and teasing. I needed to try talking to her again. I still didn’t know what Eleanor really thought about cryonics now she was older. I’d given up asking as she stiffened and seethed when I raised it, but I knew I had to find the resilience to break through.

  I’d made no attempt to hide my views on cryonics from her: how it didn’t really appeal to me, I was a little bemused by it but keen to support Dan, and how the latest media stories – particularly people’s reactions and responses – were making me angry and defensive.

  I was desperate for all the publicity and drama to stop, so Eleanor could have time and space to make up her own mind. I hoped it wouldn’t become a stigma that could damage my daughter in some profound way in the future – causing deep, emotional scars – or be a burden that would follow her everywhere, attracting intrigue and derision; the daughter-of-a-weirdo. If it was eternity Dan craved, he may have got it. ‘The dad in the freezer’, then in the future ‘the granddad … the great-granddad …’

  I swing into the drive with a gasp. Two strangers are standing by the front door, a suited man staring at the car, a woman on her phone, one hand on the hip of her patterned jeggings.

  Of course. I’d agreed to do an unaccompanied viewing as the estate agent was busy. It had slipped my mind. I close my eyes, letting out an exhalation of despair as I tug on the handbrake. Something else I’ve messed up; my life still so disorganised, a tangle of threads that begged for Dan’s touch to unravel.

  The couple accept my apologies for the late arrival, and the untidiness of the house. They appear to love it, the woman gushing in every room, nudging her husband and flashing consultative glances. They have four children and three dogs; the space is ideal.

  Yes – this house is perfect for a lovely, large family, I think, with regret after shutting the front door on their smiles. They coveted my house, and I coveted their family. I realise that not only had I made zero effort, as with previous viewings – no decluttering, vases of flowers or baking smells – but I’d found myself scratching around for negatives, telling them about the distant road noise when the wind was blowing in an easterly direction and that the automatic garage door sometimes stuck.

  Do I really want to move?

  CHAPTER 18

  Catching sight of Dan’s old laptop charging on the sideboard, I can’t resist powering it up. On the screen sit a few work-related files and documents, gathering data dust, and stuck beneath the keyboard is a faded yellow Post-it note with what looks like some passwords. Good old organised Dan. He loved a Post-it, deriving such satisfaction from ticking off listed tasks, preferably in order.

  I imagined I’d still find Dan’s Post-its cropping up in odd places for years to come, like dog hairs at Auntie’s bungalow long after her schnauzer departed.

  I remember teasing him about wiping out a huge swathe of Nottingham forest for the squillions of Post-its he got through.

  ‘Still not enough of them to cover your mouth though,’ he’d retorted. I roared at that one; cheeky bugger. Dan often stunned me with a perfectly timed gem, and he pulled the odd, impressive ruse, like convincing me his health company was testing a tablet that could make your armpit sweat smell of lemons; naturally, of course. I’d been unusually gullible to swallow that one, though it was washed down with a huge gulp of wishful thinking. I had a strong aversion to body odour.

  I scroll through Dan’s internet history; mostly motoring and healthy living websites. I’m about to click off when I stumble across a forum. Dan on a forum. Surely not. The link leads to a cryonics website.

  Typing in several passwords, I’m soon in the middle of a conversation between Dan and someone called ‘CrykeyMoses’. It’s so strange reading Dan’s words. I used to hear his voice clearly in my head, but just recently I’d had to strain to recall it, desperately willing the sound to form in my inner ear. Reading his words is like having Dan back in the room. I hear his inflections, the clear tone and slight hint of a Midlands twang. Yet he’s playing a slightly different character with his on
line acquaintance, dropping in slang I never heard him use, an exaggerated informality.

  Then I read something I wish I hadn’t.

  CrykeyMoses has posted: ‘Your Mrs still not into the freezin’ thing bud?

  Dan: ‘No, she doesn’t get it.’

  CrykeyMoses: ‘What’s with women not getting it? Has she seen the training video?’

  Dan: ‘She’s not really interested, mate, doesn’t take it seriously. Everything’s a joke to her.’

  My heart’s pounding through my blouse. My eyes race on, but the subject changes, Crykey asking Dan how much he can press on the bench and if he’s still on the strict diet. Dan’s reply certainly impresses.

  CrykeyMoses: ‘Shit – you’ve got some serious stamina bud. That should sort out your little problem. If not now, you’re sure to come back as a stud! Saying that, you’ll live forever at this rate!!

  I check the date of the messages. April. About eighteen months before Dan died, just after our fantastic Easter break in Rhodes. The weight of his words in print pains me. What was Dan’s ‘little problem’ Crykey had referred to, and why the ‘stud’ reference? It made no sense – and from a virtual stranger. Dan’s comment about me not taking anything seriously was harsh; unfounded. I might have made a few jokes, but I’d tried to listen. I certainly didn’t discourage him. I was just mystified by his cryonics wish. In my defence, I really didn’t think he’d go through with it.

  I had watched the training video. Most of it. It’s true I was reluctant. Selfishly so. I just found it hard to digest. ‘Once a person’s pronounced dead, it’s essential that the preservation procedures begin immediately’ the voice-over had explained in a dry monotone. Then a dummy, called Bill, was shown being manhandled in a bath in the back of a van. There was lots of machinery and equipment, and urgent voices talking of stabilising medications and something to stop the blood clotting. At one point, I almost laughed – it seemed so amateur, like a spoof. At another, I wanted to look through my hands, like when I was a kid watching the hacking scene in a horror movie. I was alarmed, thinking: ‘they could do this to my husband one day’. I had to walk away. I preferred not to see the rest, though I’d made myself watch it since.